Product Quality Improvement Strategy and Competitive Advantage In Industry Competition

Abstract

Currently, every country is competing to increase the productivity of its economy. The economy is one of the references for a country's progress. The Indonesian economy currently ranks 15th in the world. The significant growth of the Indonesian economy is inseparable from the role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which support export and import growth, one of the SMEs that can be favored is the metal-based processing industry. The role of SMEs which is so big and significant must be maintained and developed to be able to compete in the era of global competition, especially now that the Asean Economic Community (AEC) has also been cooperating. Problems that interfere with the development and productivity of SMEs made of metal were also felt by UD. SETIA KAWAN. Based on the research results, it is known that there are external and internal factors that become a problem at UD. SETIA KAWAN, from the internal side, the most important thing is human resources and for external factors is the flood of foreign production that enters Indonesia. This problem solving will be done with the Kaizen strategy (5S). This improvement will result in strategies for increasing the overall productivity of work with the main focus on workers and systems. In the future, it is hoped that the proposed strategy will have a direct effect which will have implications for increasing the competitiveness of SMEs, especially the metal industry in Tegal City.